On Friday, I said I'd post reviews of the two new Borg-McEnroe books on Monday. Alas, the big news out of Pakistan knocked me out of my writing mojo, so the reviews now will be posted -- I promise -- tomorrow morning.

It turns out these two are not mellowing with age. Agassi apparently was a bit embarrassed that Sampras schooled him in their recent Madison Square Garden exhibition, so he put in a call to his longtime rival ahead of a planned series of South American exhibitions. From Tennis.com:

"Andre phoned Pete after that match to tell him he should have slowed down a little bit to make it more entertaining and not take the exhibitions that competitively," said one of the sources. "The conversation didn't have a friendly ending and Pete wanted to cancel the whole thing."

The show did go on, but Pete and Andre no longer played against each other -- they simply played on the same bill. Andre faced Jim Courier, Sampras played -- and beat! -- current World No. 11 Mardy Fish. Pete and Andre didn't talk to each other during the trip, didn't talk to the media at the same time and danced around questions about the state of their relationship.

It's no surprise that Agassi would continue to pick at Sampras even all these years after their respective retirements from the pro tour. (In his memoir he called Sampras cheap, for starters.) He was always the little brother in the rivalry, losing to him on the biggest stages (U.S. Open, Wimbledon) time and again.

OK, I'll start by pointing out something that Agassi wasn't willing to cop to in his autobiography. His now-famous hatred of tennis has a lot more to do with Pete Sampras than it does with Agassi's nutjob father. Mike Agassi raised Andre to be the best tennis player in the world, and for years Sampras wouldn't let Double-A accomplish his destiny.

In 1990, with Agassi the tour's hotshot, a relatively unknown Sampras upset the Las Vegas Kid at the U.S. Open to win his first major -- and send Agassi, still Slamless, to his second straight loss in a major final. Five years later, with Agassi on an unprecedented winning streak and playing at his absolute best, Sampras stopped him cold again at the U.S. Open in a brutal performance. This helped push Andre into a black funk, leading -- as we now know thanks to "Open" -- to his abuse of meth. Then in 1999, the new, improved Agassi had finally proved how good he really was by winning Roland Garros, only to get his butt handed to him just three weeks later in the Wimbledon final by -- that's right -- Sampras. And let's not forget that in 2002, when Sampras was supposed to be washed up while Agassi was only getting better with age, Sampras thumped him once again in the U.S. Open final. Late in a major, Agassi only got the best of Sampras in Melbourne, and the fact is, until the past half-dozen years, no one took the Australian Open nearly as seriously as Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. (That's why Petr Korda and Thomas Johansson are both Oz Open champions.)

This abbreviated trip down memory lane goes a long way toward explaining Agassi's behavior Friday night. Calling a multimillionaire a tightwad before all the world isn't fun and games. It's a shot across the bow. More accurately, it's a tantrum -- one more venting of an intractable frustration. You can't be a professional tennis player for 20 years, and win eight major championships, without being ultra-competitive. Agassi is that. And so the mere sight of Pete Sampras, the one guy who was consistently better than him, is simply too much for Andre.

The two champions officially papered over that brouhaha, but a year later, Agassi still kind of acts like a big baby when he's around Pete. What's surprising is how deeply Agassi's gauche sniping has gotten under Sampras' skin. Sampras was always preternaturally mature and calm on court. But that was during his days on the ATP tour, when he was honed to a sharp emotional and physical edge. In sludgy, Mr. Mom retirement, his discipline has slipped. If he and Andre are going to continue their popular world tour together, he's going to have to be the bigger man.